Adventurers League Character Help (Ninja like stealth build)

[sage20500]

Just made my first character for a local Adventurers League, recently hit level 3, and the store I play at allows for free character remaking up until level 4. The concept for the character I wanted to play was essentially to build a wood elf who is all around decent in combat while also being able to do stealthy things when needed; with most of my focus going into combat since it seems Wizard's official encounters are very combat heavy.

Point buy for stats before racials landed me with 8 Str, 15 Dex, 15 Con, 8 Int, 15 Wis, and 8 Cha, and I'm using Wood Elf as my race. A build suggestion that I've seen online that I liked a lot suggested Shadow Monk 6/Assassin Rogue 3/Battlemaster Fighter 11, my big issue at the moment is I'm not sure at what character level I should be taking which class level as a guideline. I'm currently Rogue 1/Monk 1 and just took my 2nd level in monk for flurry of blows, but I'm not sure if I should just right now immediately make a rush for monk 6, then take the next 2 levels of rogue, then finish off with Battlemaster fighter? From what I've seen from looking at the class features, monk 3 will give me some unique abilities from Shadow Path, but without taking levels of Warlock (I really wanted to stick with keeping a martial feel to the character and didn't want to worry about invocations or cantrips) it seems I'll mostly only be using Ki for flurry of blows anyway and only using Darkness to blind enemy casters/archers or silence in order to keep enemies from alerting their allies. If I rush some levels of fighter sooner, I'll be able to pick up the dueling weapon style as well as action surge.... so yeah, I'm kind of in a bind at the moment. Does anyone have any helpful tips they could offer me for how to go about putting together a character that can be useful in combat heavy games for a standard party of 4-6 characters at most levels of play?

[Specter]

Fighter's not necessary for your concept. Stick to Rogue/Shadow Monk.

Start as a Monk until level 5 for extra attack, then take Rogue for Expertise ans Sneak Attack; Assassin is not vital because the crits don't come up as often as you'd wish. I'd personally recommend Swashbuckler 5/Shadow Monk 15.

The goody of Shadow Monk is not Darkness, but Pass Without Trace.

[lunaticfringe]

Fighter's not necessary for your concept. Stick to Rogue/Shadow Monk.

Start as a Monk until level 5 for extra attack, then take Rogue for Expertise ans Sneak Attack; Assassin is not vital because the crits don't come up as often as you'd wish. I'd personally recommend Swashbuckler 5/Shadow Monk 15.

The goody of Shadow Monk is not Darkness, but Pass Without Trace.

Indeed the Swashbuckler, I find, syncs up Shadow a bit better. You want to shadow jump to threats and lock them down, Swashbuckler can sneak attack without needing an ally nearby. Most monks want mobile which you can skip and grab something like Mage Slayer or Tough instead.

I find Assassin to be over hyped by new players, most of the game your party isn't ambushing.

[XmonkTad]

What about a darkness casting warlock with devil's sight?

Anyway, sticking with rogue seems much closer to your character concept than rogue/fighter does. A pure assassin does good damage and gets the rogue goodies that really help with stealth.

[Lombra]

Rogue 1/shadow monk X is probably gonna cover all your needs. Pass Without Trace is the spell for sneaking and scouting, so you are not gonna need to expertise stealth.

[Xetheral]

If you expect to only play with single AL DM, it's worth asking them to elaborate on how they interpret the Stealth rules. If you expect to play with multiple DMs, you should know going in that they each may have their own interpretation of the Stealth rules (and thus that tactics that work at one table may not work at another).

[Sariel Vailo]

Call yourself ninja and insert animal like ninja lion. Now you have a name i saw an ok build blade lock shadow monk for tp and some unarmed atack and rogue 3 for assasinate its ok monk shadow x rogue 3 or more warlock x if your "magic technicques" need to be silent
Grab silent spell and twinned spell as a sorcerer

[RulesJD]

Honestly, just stick straight Shadowmonk until Level 14.

There's nothing you get from Rogue 1 that really helps (Monks are already Bonus action heavy so Cunning Action isn't that useful) more than another level of Monk.

Monks get to skip a lot of normal skill checks simply by virtue of their abilities (Slow Fall, Deflect Missiles, Wall Run, etc). Nothing is better than combining Pass Without Trade + Shadow Step at level 6. You are neigh undetectable. Once you get level 11 and can (basically) turn Invisible at-will, you basically break the stealth aspect of the game.